


days into years into eons

by miniconsuffrage



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miniconsuffrage/pseuds/miniconsuffrage
Summary: Dinobot survives the crash, but the Maximals are already long gone.
Relationships: Dinobot/Optimus Primal
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27
Collections: Doop Week 2021





	days into years into eons

Dinobot is left behind.

He wakes up alone and surrounded by wreckage. His body slowly pulls itself back together from where it has splintered, and Dinobot doesn't rush the process. He waits, just feeling the crush of the ship around him, digging into his body uncomfortably. The Nemesis, he remembers after some undefinable amount of time has passed. He remembers the Nemesis. He remembers causing the explosion, and the ship going down. He remembers—

Reluctantly, Dinobot digs himself free. He finds a hallway that hasn't been crushed in the second crash, and he looks around until he finds a hole in the ship's hull. Unable to swim, Dinobot walks along the ocean floor, excruciatingly slowly, until he finally makes it back to dry land. 

Dinobot sits on the beach, sinking into the wet sand. Moonlight glints off the rolling waves. The whole thing is unbearably peaceful.

He remembers two selves, as different from each other as night and day. And that, in itself, is something—he didn't used to be able to remember himself before. Now, he thinks of the opponents he's fought on Megatron's command, and remembers that they were once his friends. Perhaps more.

They're gone now. When the sun begins to rise, Dinobot drags himself up to check. The Darksyde is gone. The Axalon, save for a few bits and pieces, is gone. The Ark is exactly where it used to be, with no outside signs of life. 

They've gone back to Cybertron. Dinobot doesn't know the outcome of the war, but he's pretty sure the Maximals had won.

And...left Dinobot behind, on this prehistoric planet. Not intentionally, he's sure of that. But now, he's stuck. There are no other Cybertronians here. There is no way off. Humanity hasn't even evolved yet. He has a few million years to go before he has any chance of getting off this planet at all.

The thought should make him feel despair, but all he really feels is emptiness.

* * *

Dinobot paces, for years on end. 

It's not that he doesn't have choices. He has the power to completely rewrite history, unaided, unwatched. He could go back into the Nemesis, find anyone left and slaughter them. He could dedicate the countless decades ahead of him to finding a way into the Ark. He could put a stop to the Great War before the Autobots or Decepticons wake up again. 

And yet, it's no choice at all. What stops him isn't the thought of erasing his own existence, but those of the rest. He thinks of Cheetor, asking to be taught how to use a sword. He thinks of Rhinox's dry humor, and Rattrap's blunt honesty. He thinks of the last glimpse he got of Optimus's face, just before the ship went down, and it overwhelms him. He tries not to think of it. But really, there isn't much else to do.

Dinobot has never considered himself much of a social creature, but even on a planet as big as this, it takes no time at all for loneliness to press in on him. Everywhere he goes, he remembers. He can't find a way to stop.

On the opposite side of the continent, in a desert, Dinobot lays on his back and watches a meteor shower. His eyes blur as the white dots of light streak across the sky. And there, he realizes—

This is not the end.

Dinobot can't stop living, any more than the original owner of his spark could. He can, however, wait. And if he waits long enough, he'll come again to the days of his own existence. He can't stop the Beast Wars from happening without again erasing his own existence. But he knows when he left Cybertron. He can wait until then, ride a space bridge back home, and be there waiting for Optimus and the rest when they return through the rift in time. 

Dinobot has no idea how long it's been since he woke up, but for the first time in all that time, he finds within himself a glimmer of hope.

* * *

Checking in on humanity's development becomes a keen interest.

The proto-humans he finds now are not even close to the same generation as those he'd saved once upon a time, but they seem to know of him all the same. Now that they're out of the valley, they've started splitting off, forming their own distinct groups, and changing within those groups. Dinobot watches them use the tools they'd learned to make to build structures, and he watches them use those same tools to fight each other. He wonders if this is innate, or if they'd infected the newly budding species with violence before they'd ever had the chance to learn another way. If so, the damage is done.

Diniobot walks among them. He watches them, and they allow him to watch. Sometimes they show him what they've made. Sometimes, Dinobot tries to teach them what he knows of honor and battle. Sometimes he finds his likeness scratched into the ground with sticks, or painted onto rocks and cave walls. They shout to each other to announce his arrival when he drops in, and present him with gifts. It's something to do. It's a way to fill time.

They grow and change, just the slightest bit closer to correct each time he stops by. They figure out how to create better tools, and they build bigger and sturdier structures. Once, Dinobot returns to the site of an encampment he'd visited before, only to find a village. There are individual houses made of mud and straw, arranged around a _road_. Dinobot doesn't know how long it's been since he's seen a road.

He transforms on the outskirts, the motions rusty from disuse, and walks through the village, taking it all in. The children run from him in fear, but the adults welcome him inside, and lead him to the center, where they have what looks to be a crude place of congregation—it's far bigger than the little houses surrounding it, and there are logs for people to sit on.

The buildings are all crude. They're nothing like what he remembers from Cybertron, but right here and now, Dinobot can only think on how beautiful they are.

Optimus would be thrilled, he realizes, and something aches in him right alongside the inexplicable pride. Well. He'll have to tell him about this, someday.

* * *

He starts collecting.

Dinobot has a few different stashes where he drops off little trinkets. Nothing very fancy, or even very useful. Mostly, they're things the not-quite-humans give him that he decides not to dump. Not that he has any use for them, and they'll probably rot and turn into dust before too long, but when he looks at them, he just thinks that Optimus might enjoy them someday. They won't last, he knows that, but when he looks at them, it reminds him of what he's doing here. It isn't aimlessly, mindlessly wandering until he himself disappears. He's waiting for something that _will_ come, if he has patience. 

The dinosaurs die out and take a good chunk of both his collections and the protohumans with them. Earth is quiet for a very long time after that. Dinobot still waits, but stays closer to the shadows now. The stories get lost, and his beast form is no longer familiar to them. They still see him sometimes, though, and he still picks up their knickknacks. He still finds drawings and carvings of himself, along with plenty of other wild beasts, and marvels at this species' dedication to recreating everything they see.

Most of his collection does, in fact, disintegrate, but some of it sticks around. He gets a little puff of satisfaction from that. Whatever makes it back home with him will be the strongest and most enduring of what this planet has to offer. Maybe that isn't what Optimus would value most, but Optimus won't see it for another few million years. For now, this is Dinobot's collection.

* * *

Human development is very slow for a very long time, and then suddenly, it feels like someone has pressed fast forward. They're building bigger and bigger buildings and cities. They're creating better weapons. They're sewing, and taming animals, and starting large-scale wars. At first, it's not a problem to stay out of sight and leave them to their business. Eventually, though, they start stumbling upon things they shouldn't.

By this point, whatever's left of the Axalon has been displaced by currants and worn away enough by erosion that Dinobot doesn't think it's going to be a problem if a human stumbles across a piece of it. The Darksyde is long gone. The Nemesis is deep enough and the ocean wide enough that Dinobot is pretty sure they won't find it until the Autobots and Decepticons wake up.

The Ark, though. That's practically begging to be found. And if they tamper with it, if they find a way inside? That could radically alter the timeline. Dinobot isn't willing to take that chance.

The landscape has slowly shifted. There's less and less plant life out here, and it gets drier. There aren't many humans around to begin with. Dinobot posts himself there, and for a few hundred years, he just waits. People do wander by in traveling groups, carrying their portable housing with them, and Dinobot gently scares them in another direction, but those groups are few and far between. 

He's in the home stretch now, and it feels unbearable. Millions of years with no one to talk to have taken their toll. He wishes now more desperately than ever to be able to quit. But what choice does he have? It's almost over. Just a few hundred years more. 

More than ever before, Dinobot thinks of his friends. He stares out at the shifting sands and remembers their voices, their jokes, their arguments. He remembers Optimus's smile, the gentle touch of his hand in Dinobot's. Dinobot is a ghost from another time, one that has died out years and years and years ago, but he clings to this spot, this ship, haunting it with the desperate hope that someday all of this will have been _for something._

It wears on him. It's altogether too much time alone with his thoughts. Luckily, it soon becomes much more difficult to keep humans away from the Ark.

They start to swarm like ants. It feels like only yesterday he sees them in the distance, crossing the expanse of desert with horses and cattle and wagons, but then they start to build. He watches them carefully as they put together a rail, and then start to run trains across it. Then come towns, and then cities, and big construction projects. More than once they come to the mountain, hoping for water or wildlife or some other spot to blow up and mold into their image, and Dinobot has to take care not to be seen as he drives them away. He causes small avalanches in the surrounding mountains. He maims their cattle at night, and destroys their equipment. Some are stubborn enough to go looking for him with torches and then flashlights, and they see glimpse of him out of the corner of their eyes. Usually, that's enough to keep them away for good. But how long will that last? How long before these humans become more bullheaded and pay him no mind?

All he really wants is for this to be over. The stars have changed so much since they first landed here, and now, with the light pollution from the nearby city, they're just a little bit harder to see.

* * *

Then, finally, it ends. And it doesn't.

Dinobot doesn't notice the inciting incident and he doesn't know what year it is, which is why it's such a surprise when the Ark starts to shake with movement. He dives out of the way and just barely misses being spotted by a small hoard of Decepticons. Dinobot risks peeking out from behind his shielding boulder to watch them go, to spend just a few kliks looking at _the_ Megatron. The original. Dinobot may not like him much, as a historical figure, but no one can deny he has a presence to him.

Starscream very nearly takes his head off, shooting at the Ark. Even more reason to dislike him.

Once they leave, Dinobot is on the clock. Events will happen the way they happen now. He just has to get out of the way.

It isn't easy escaping the area. Once he's beyond the mountains, everything is so flat there's nowhere to hide. Dinobot has to primarily rely on speed to get him as far away as possible. He runs for days, avoiding highways and cities and trying not to be a little sad that this world is nothing like the one he once knew. 

Eventually the sand and hard, cracked ground starts to shift to dirt and then to grass. Dinobot finds a forest, and stays there until humans come to bulldoze it to make room for more construction. He goes from place to place this way for years until he finally finds his way to a national park. There, he finds a secluded corner not often visited by park rangers or witless campers, and he waits.

As he does, the Autobots and Decepticons continue fighting their war. He hears news about their exploits sometimes. Once, he would have been more interested in seeing it firsthand. Now, he just wants them to get it over with. 

He tunes them out and focuses instead on his new surroundings, wherever he is. He'd spent several hundred years in one place, never seeing much of any other people or wildlife. Now, at night, he explores and watches the animals going about their business. He studies campsites from afar, sometimes listens to late night fireside conversations. He takes in whatever news he can get, any mark at all of the passage of time. And gradually, time does pass. 

It's been eons since he studied any history, but he considered himself well-versed once. It's funny how little any of that affects him or the lives of the people he sees, here. The Autobots and Decepticons are mentioned in passing. The arrival and defeat of Unicron is barely discussed. The end of the war is spoken about with both relief and nerves—perhaps it seems too good to be true. 

The stars look different now. Some are gone, and some new ones have taken their place. It doesn't feel like the same sky he and Optimus once sat under, discussing in whispers their hopes for the future, as if they spoke too loud the universe would hear them and put them back in their place. Perhaps that _is_ what happened.

Just a little bit longer.

* * *

There is the issue of Dinobot's appearance.

He doesn't look anything like a regular Cybertronian, even now that he's finally witnessed the transition to smaller models. He's far more oddly-shaped, more organic-looking and more pointy, than anyone else he's ever seen. There isn't anything he can do about this. Instead, he has to hope that he's still intimidating enough that no one will challenge him.

The other problem is the matter of identity. His last act on Cybertron was enough to get him locked up for the rest of his existence, and wouldn't that be a cruel irony, after the millions of years he's just been through? He doesn't know what he would do, if it came to that. He's trying not to think about it. 

He keeps a close eye on the date, the closer he gets to the correct time. When it finally does come, it almost doesn't feel real. 

He'd planned this out thousands of years prior. There are space bridges all over Earth, now. He finds one with less traffic, and, the day before his other self's act of treason and exit from Cybertron, he approaches and gets in line. Once he arrives there, he'll lay low until he hears the news that Optimus and his crew have arrived. Then...

Well. Dinobot is a little less sure of the plan from that point onward. He'll figure it out once it comes to that.

Stepping out into the open in root mode and approaching the space bridge makes Dinobot feel more exposed than he has in millions of years. People do stare at him—humans and Cybertronians alike—but nobody challenges him. They just have to stare. 

Dinobot approaches the administration counter and identifies himself to the computer. When it gives him an error, he waits for an attendant to come help him.

"Huh. That's weird. This is saying you never arrived on Earth in the first place," she says, clearly baffled. It's the first time anyone has spoken to him in millions of years. It's the first time he responds. 

"There must be some malfunction," Dinobot says. His voice is raspy and cracked from extreme disuse. The attendant looks alarmed. "I arrived here for vacation ten days ago."

"I've never heard of a malfunction like that before," she says, and does all she can to find the error. Dinobot succeeds in every test of his identity, so ultimately, she shrugs it off and manually approves his travel back home. 

None of it feels real until Dinobot is out of the space bride and on the street outside the station in Cybertron. He looks up and sees _home_ , at long last. He very nearly falls to his knees. The exhaustion he's felt as a constant background noise to life for the last few million years gives way to profound, undeniable relief. The sky looks exactly as he remembers it. Dinobot may be forever changed, but his home is the same. It's here— _he's_ here.

And still, he has to wait. 

Optimus and his team will be back soon. And when they return, Dinobot will be right there waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> here's how beast machines doop can still win
> 
> anyway maybe next time i'll write dinobot and optimus actually interacting for doop week! someday i might come back to this and refine the concept. for today, i am very tired and i had homework to do so this is what we're getting, enjoy!
> 
> share on [tumblr](https://miniconsuffrage.tumblr.com/post/642707020680773632/days-into-weeks-into-eons-rating-general) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/miniconsuffrage/status/1359366731286933504?s=20)!


End file.
